No control box for metal mat

Mixel Plix · Trick Member Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Location: PA

Ok, well my neighbor does this job where he cleans out houses and he gets to keep whatever they leave behind. He found this metal DDR mat, and decided to give it to me. http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/metalmat2s.jpg

The control box is missing, and it has an end that looks like this http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/15pinadapter.jpg

I was wondering, is it possible to get and adapter to connect from that 15 pin to the Redoctane Afterburner control box end to use that control box?
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/9pinredoctane.jpg

If that's not possible, is there some kind of adapter that can just connect from that 15 pin to a ps2? Any other options? Thank you!

NinjaDux · Trick Member Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Fo Co

Buy a control box for a metal pad from anywhere and if that doesnt work go to radio shack and buy a 15 pin head like the one on the end of the mat and cut that tip off the pad. Then rewire it so it works on the new control box. Its what I did
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Mixel Plix · Trick Member Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Location: PA

oh well i forgot to mention one thing. i'm not exactly sure if the mat works, so i dont want to go buy a control box and not be able to use it. i wanted some kind of adapter because my dad could always use it for something later. is there any way around the control box? is there a way i could get an adapter for the redoctane control box for this mat to work with it?

Wakka Lakka · Trick Member Joined: 12 Mar 2005

All these pads work the same way. There is a common ground pin and an individual 'hot' pin for each of the arrows/buttons. Using a continuity checker (or 'diode' check on most multimeters) you can determine what is what by just seeing which pins have continuity when you step on each of the arrows. The problem is you will need to buy a control box of some sort since the gaming console will use some sort of encoded signal (unless it's an Atari

). It isn't too hard to do if you have some time on your hands to poke around with.

marcan · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jul 2005

you can actually wire a pad to the PC joystick port with just wiring and no control box. The PC joystick port supports two buttons and analog x and y, for two separate joysticks (8 total inputs). So you could wire a pad to the four available buttons, or even wire two pads using the X and Y axis connections (an axis for ONE button, not two, so you wouldn't have the left+right problem). For buttons wiring you'd need no components, and to plug into the axis connections you will need some resistors.

For simple buttons wiring: google the pinout for the PC joystick port. common in the pad goes to GROUND, and the four arrows go to the four button inputs (two for joystick one and two for joystick two).

Otherwise Wakka is right: PS2 uses a relatively simple serial protocol (but still way more complex than the SNES), and both XBOX and PC use USB which is an incredibly complex I/O system (the PC uses the standard gamepad mode on the PC, and the XBox uses a special proprietary XBox pad mode, but they work almost the same way and you can use an XBox pad on the PC if you download the XBCD drivers)

MadFlava · Trick Member Joined: 21 Feb 2006

The RO control boxes are out of stock anyway.

Mixel Plix · Trick Member Joined: 19 Mar 2005 Location: PA

thanks for your replies...well, i was thinking of just completly rewiring the whole mat, like in the homebuilt mats. (should i be posting this is in the homebuilt mats thread now?) anyways, i took this controller apart, but does anyone know where i would solder? i was looking at instructions and have a basic idea of how to do this. here's the pictures of the controller i have.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/wholecontroller.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/rightsidecontroller.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e295/darkesthippie/leftsidecontroller.jpg

marcan · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jul 2005

where each button would go two tinned metal connections connected by a semiconductive black strip (ignore this, it's for dualshock2 pressure sensitivity). One of this connections should be common for all buttons - this is ground (look for a green trace that connects all of them together). The other is the individual cable for each button. Solder ground to any of the buttons' ground, and then each individual button cable to each individual button.